but at least the war is over
by emptyvessels
Summary: He wasn't sure what it meant, and he never got the chance to find out.


Make of this story and its ending what you will. Everything was done purposefully for the reader to draw their own assumptions. I hope this doesn't suck too badly. I've been consumed by Gadge feelings lately and was getting real emotional about it and wanted to write something sad. So yeah, this was basically born. Enjoy and don't hate me too badly?

Also, I obviously don't own The Hunger Games.

* * *

Sometimes, he can still hear her.

On the nights when sleep does not come (which is almost every night, if he was being honest), he can't help but listen. Her sound is unavoidable and unbearably loud. He wishes she would go away.

Or at least change her tune.

It's always the screaming – high pitched, deafening cries in the dead of night, and the faraway sound of bombs going off. He tried burying his head beneath the pillow at first but when he discovered he couldn't drown her out, he just waited for what seemed like days for the sounds to stop.

It was masochistic of him, really; he knew he'd become a prisoner out of his own will. With liberty comes sacrifice. Nothing and _no one_ is ever truly free.

He may have won the war, but he would never know peace. He's coming to terms with the fact that he was never meant for that kind of life.

One night, the screams stop, and instead, the silence in his empty home fills with the rhythmic thumping of a beating heart. Logic would tell him it's his own pulse pumping loudly in his ears (the nights tend to get cold here and if he's numb enough he can feel the blood pumping through his veins, his body's natural defense against the bitter chill), but he no longer considers himself to be a man of logic. The _why_ didn't matter to him anymore. The last thing he deserved was a reasonable explanation for the things he couldn't explain and now he's lost too much to even care.

He shuts his eyes tight and tries to force himself to sleep, but he can't ignore the thumping. He thinks it will eventually stop, and at this thought very briefly hopes it _is_ his own.

She is wearing her white nightdress when he sees her, the one he'd seen her in a few nights before the destruction of District 12. Certain he is losing his mind, he sits up in bed and rubs his eyes with a fist, hoping he was simply just seeing things in his sleep-deprived state.

Her image remains no matter how many times he tries to blink her away.

She approaches him slowly. If he believed in anything, he might have believed she was a ghost.

She sits down at the foot of his bed, lifting his legs so that they were resting on her lap. She smiles. It's all too painfully familiar and he feels his heart constricting in his chest, like his ribcage could crack at any minute.

The last time he saw her alive flashes into his mind.

He has to be dreaming.

It _has_ to be a dream. Or a nightmare.

She starts humming and he recognizes the tune, even though it's been years since he's last heard it.

"_That's pretty." He leaned over the side of the piano, watching her fingers gracefully dance over the ivory keys._

"_Thank you. I wrote it myself."_

_He listened as she finished the song. The last few notes seemed to linger in the air long after she played them._

_Sad, but hauntingly beautiful. Like her._

"_What is it about?" He wondered. "I mean, what inspired you?"_

_She was silent for a brief moment, and then whispered, "It's for her." _For Katniss_, her eyes added. "I miss her."_

_He didn't know what it was about that moment, exactly, and he probably never will. He knew they both loved her, the same girl, in both similar and completely different ways. _

_But in that moment, he trusted her more than anyone else. More than himself or his family, even more than the girl he'd spent most of his days with in the woods; the girl who was fighting for her life – and another boy's – for some sick form of entertainment. _

_In that moment, the only one who understood him, completely and totally, was barely even his friend._

She rubs her hands up and down his leg, comforting him. It all _feels so real_ that he nearly breaks down in tears.

He's not sure what stops him.

"Hi, Gale." She says. Her voice still sounds like the song.

He stares at her, unflinching and unresponsive.

He's imagining this. He has to be. It's all of the loss and guilt and pain he's been feeling and trying to ignore finally merging into one unshakable force. His mind playing tricks on him.

_Fine_, he thought. He deserved it. But even this was too much. How much could he honestly blame himself? The bombing wasn't his fault. At least not that bombing.

His heart hurts again and he instinctively brings his hand to his chest. She leans forward and places her hand over his, her face hovering just inches away from his. He urges himself to wake up.

He should have made more of an effort, should have fought for her life like she was a part of his family because, really, in some ways, she was. A part of his family. A part of him.

In some ways, she still is.

When he opens his eyes again, she's still there. Just as she had been the last dozen times he'd tried waking up.

"What do you want?" He asks, aware of how crazy he must look. He is grateful, and not for the first time, that he lives alone.

"Stop driving yourself so crazy." She speaks and her soft touch caresses the back of his calloused hand.

Before he could say anything, she brings her face closer to his and presses her lips to the top of his head.

_She sat on his lap, almost straddling him, her lips playfully attacking every inch of skin on his face, his neck, his chest._

_He smiled. He would have never guessed that this side of her even existed, let alone that he would get to see it for himself. For awhile, it was easy to forget. In fact, it was hard to think about anything else. Her lips were soft when they finally met his._

_She leaned back and carefully slipped off the white lace nightgown she had been wearing since she met him at her window just a few hours earlier. It was soft and pretty._

_Like her._

_His hands travelled to her waist, bringing her close to him again. She giggled at the feel of his rough touch._

"_You're gross and I am going to regret this." She lied and allowed herself to be enveloped in his embrace._

_When they weren't together, he couldn't help but think of how wrong it was; that he was using her, that he could never love her the way he loved Katniss. Once Katniss returned again (and this time he was sure she'd make it out, no matter what – it was all but written in stone), he was certain this thing with Madge would end._

_But this didn't stop him from wanting to see her, couldn't keep him away. _

_He wasn't sure what that meant, and he never got the chance to find out._

This couldn't be a dream, he decided. This couldn't be all in his head, just his guilt playing tricks on him. Because that was just it, he was too guilty. He knew himself well enough to know he would never – could never forgive himself.

If this was truly a prison of his own making, there would still be screaming and bombs. Nothing even close to thoughts of forgiveness.

The word sounded foreign in his head without the words "_will" _or _"never" _in front of them.

Or maybe his mind just found a new way to torture him? Begging him to do the one thing he knew couldn't be done? He thinks he prefers the screaming and the bombs.

Might as well ask himself to go back in time and change things. _Get to Madge in time. Save Prim._

Just like with so many other things, he'll never know.

He looks at his window. Why is it still dark outside? Why won't the sun come out so this could all just go away?

_Why won't it all just go away?_

Gale closes his eyes as he her hands move to touch the side of his face. He pretends for a minute (and regrets it shortly after) that they are back in her bedroom that night before the bombing; they're just two people pressed together to fit in her small single bed, a separate entity from the rest of the world. And for the first time since his father died, he feels completely safe.

But the feeling flees the moment he opens his eyes.


End file.
